


Two Parts Sugar

by moonrise31



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: F/F, fluff only, ft ot5, uni roommates au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:29:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28976682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonrise31/pseuds/moonrise31
Summary: After Joohyun starts her fourth year of university, she comes to learn that Seungwan is much more than the randomly assigned roommate who offers goofy grins and baking sprees.(Seungwan, meanwhile, wants only to make Joohyun happy, and doesn't dare to entertain the thought that Joohyun might think the same.)
Relationships: Bae Joohyun | Irene/Son Seungwan | Wendy
Comments: 7
Kudos: 164
Collections: Fic/Art Exchange (The Fic/Art Tinder)





	Two Parts Sugar

**Author's Note:**

> I've become a wenrene writer without meaning to, but I have no regrets
> 
> A fic based on akitafuruku's adorable [fanart](https://twitter.com/moonrise31/status/1353624143539826690?s=20) (!!), and a part of Keiyuu's #FicArtExchange on Twitter :D

Three weeks before Joohyun’s fourth year in university is set to start, she receives an email with no fewer than three enthusiastic emojis in the subject line.

Until this point, she had been living a perfectly peaceful life with her previous roommate -- someone who happens to share her name, and goes by Seohyun in their circle of mutual friends to avoid confusion. But Seohyun had gone on to graduate a year early, leaving Joohyun without an immediate roommate for the coming year since the rest of their friends had already split off into their own living situations.

Son Seungwan seems nice enough from her message -- she’s an incoming second-year, majoring in some type of science field that Joohyun forgets as soon as she finishes skimming the words, and excited to live with Joohyun this year. It’s the classic polite, superficial greeting that Joohyun has both made and received multiple times herself; but Seungwan somehow manages to use exclamation points and smileys in just the right way so as to not come off as saccharine, and Joohyun’s curiosity is piqued enough for her to pull out her phone and search for Seungwan on Instagram.

The Seungwan in question turns out to be the first search suggestion -- apparently both Seulgi and Sooyoung follow her already. This doesn’t tell Joohyun too much, though, since Sooyoung knows probably half of campus despite technically not having started attending the university yet, and Seulgi is one of those friendly-to-a-fault people who will befriend anyone who happens to smile in her general direction.

Joohyun spends the next few minutes scrolling through the photos on _todayis_wendy_. She learns that Seungwan is good at baking and knows all the right camera angles to prove it, and occasionally extends her photography skills and knowledge of Instagram filters to selfies and aesthetic positionings of a guitar against various backdrops. Joohyun thinks in passing that Seungwan has a nice smile -- it’s not wide, but curves more and lifts her cheeks -- and taps on a short video that quickly proves that Seungwan owns a guitar for far more than just taking pretty pictures of it.

Seungwan’s voice is nice too, Joohyun decides as she pulls up the email again to send her reply. A short message chain and three weeks later, she hears it in person as she answers the doorbell to Seungwan and a pile of packed suitcases. 

“Hey, unnie!” Seungwan beams immediately, because they’d exchanged numbers and dropped formalities within the first few days after initial email contact. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Same,” says Joohyun, suddenly unsure if she should say more. Sooyoung has always teased her about how sparing she is with her words, holding onto each one more tightly than a miser saves every ten-won coin. Joohyun, however, doesn’t think it’s her problem if others feel intimidated by the way she decides to participate in conversation. And yet, Seungwan cheerfully bouncing into her life via her front door has left her flailing. 

Seungwan pushes her luggage in once Joohyun steps aside, and then straightens. “I have a couple more boxes to bring up still, so I’ll be right back.”

“I can come with,” Joohyun starts, reaching for the handle of the nearest suitcase. She gives the bag a tug, eyes widening when it refuses to budge.

“It’s okay! They’re heavy, so I don’t want to trouble you.” Seungwan is out of sight before Joohyun can reply, which is just as well -- if she’d opened her mouth, Joohyun is sure she would’ve let out a rather undignified yelp at what must be the literal rocks Seungwan has decided to move in with.

With some effort, Joohyun does manage to push the bags into the living room by the time Seungwan returns and begins unpacking. The alleged rocks turn out to be an assortment of pots and pans and a hefty-looking food processor. Joohyun knows her way around the kitchen, but baking is apparently an entirely new beast, and something like admiration lifts her eyebrows before she steps forward to help Seungwan search for spare storage space in the cupboards. 

A few hours later, Seungwan declares herself officially settled, and Joohyun doesn’t consider how much her chest warms at the thought until much later.

-

A month or so into her fifth year at university, Joohyun curses her decision to take on a master’s program instead of graduating with the rest of her classmates the semester before. She’d been managing the course load well enough the first few weeks, but with the deadline for her currently nonexistent thesis proposal already large and looming, she bleakly wonders if she can quit before she falls behind too much, and then make up the lost tuition through part-time jobs and sheer desperation.

“Unnie?” Seungwan peeks into view, bending slightly to hover over where Joohyun has collapsed onto the couch. “What’s wrong?” 

“What isn’t,” Joohyun mutters, and then yelps when Seungwan suddenly grabs her wrists and pulls her up and off of the cushions. “What are you doing?”

Seungwan grins, and in the absence of phone filters and posed stiffness, there is nothing to protect Joohyun’s insides from melting in the face of it. “I’m going to bake some cookies, and you’re going to help.”

“Seungwan,” Joohyun starts, because she doesn’t really feel like spending the next hour or two trying to stir out the flour lumps in whatever mixing bowl gets shoved in front of her. But Seungwan has already dragged her to the kitchen, and returning to wallowing on the couch would mean walking back to the living room, and turning away from Seungwan and the wooden spoon she’s holding out for Joohyun to take.

“Fine,” says Joohyun, sighing as she plucks the spoon from Seungwan’s grasp. “What do you need me to do?”

Seungwan quickly steers Joohyun to the counter, measuring out cups of flour and sugar and a variety of other dry ingredients into a big mixing bowl before Joohyun can repeat her question. The liquids come next, and Joohyun hears the clinking of the sauce bottles stored in the refrigerator door as Seungwan opens and shuts it with an efficiency just on the right side of organized chaos.

Joohyun finally gets the cue to start stirring as Seungwan begins to pour the wet ingredients into the bowl. It’s slow going, but Joohyun does have some experience from when Seungwan had previously enticed her into similar baking escapades. Soon, the only thing she can find the energy to frown at is the cookie dough taking form, its sticky stiffness clinging to her spoon and refusing to mix easily with the drier clumps of flour still coating the sides of the bowl.

Strength has never been something Joohyun put any effort towards building, but she feels the frustration steadily creep up on her as a familiar soreness seeps into her muscles. The dough is far from evenly mixed, but she can only let out a haggard huff as she turns to face Seungwan, still glaring inside the bowl she’s now hugging against her stomach as she shakes the spoon out of the clumpy mess it’s thoroughly embedded in. “I’m going to break this spoon, I swear.”

“Here, let me do it.” Seungwan reaches out for the bowl, flashing a grin at Joohyun when she doesn’t let go. “Trust me, unnie. I’ve got the forearms!”

The ridiculous way she rolls her sleeve up just past her elbow and curls her wrist in an exaggerated flex leaves Joohyun giggling helplessly. The bowl slides out of her hold, and Seungwan sets it back onto the counter before she starts to mix.

“Don’t you have an electric mixer for this?” Joohyun finally has the breath to ask, rubbing at her own aching arm as she watches Seungwan successfully tackle the task of stirring the dough into submission. 

“Sure,” says Seungwan, her voice strained in every way except for its brightness, “but it’s more fun this way, don’t you think?” 

“Fun for who, exactly,” Joohyun deadpans, crossing her arms and leaning one hip against the counter. 

“You’re having fun, admit it.” Seungwan looks up and catches Joohyun’s gaze. “Oh, unnie, you’ve got a little flour on your face.”

Joohyun blinks, wiping at her cheek. Her fingers come back clean. “Where?”

“You missed it,” Seungwan says, right before setting the bowl down and reaching for Joohyun with a flour-dusted hand.

Joohyun yelps, jerking back even as Seungwan quickly swipes a streak from her ear to the very corner of her mouth. “Seungwan!”

Seungwan is too busy cackling to answer at first. But when she realizes that Joohyun has fallen into a dangerous silence, she trails off into a nervous chuckle. “Hey, unnie, I was just checking something, and I’m happy to report that even having flour on your cheek doesn’t make you look any less pretty.”

Joohyun growls. Seungwan drops the bowl in favor of dashing towards the other end of the counter, putting as much granite surface as possible in between her and the flour-coated retribution promised so clearly in Joohyun’s expression.

They dart around the kitchen island a few times before Joohyun manages to catch Seungwan by the waist, one arm wrapping around to hold her captive as Joohyun smears a floury handprint across Seungwan’s face and neck. Seungwan is half-giggling and half-screeching the entire time, and Joohyun would be worried about upsetting the neighbors if she wasn’t doubled over in laughter herself. The two of them end up huddled in a corner by the stove, Seungwan backed into it and still chuckling between pants as Joohyun snickers into her shoulder, the arm around Seungwan’s middle keeping them together so snugly that Seungwan’s warmth easily becomes Joohyun’s.

“Truce?” Seungwan finally manages to gasp out. 

Joohyun hums, lifting her reddened face from where she had been pressing into Seungwan’s collarbone. “If you let me have the first cookie.”

“Deal,” Seungwan says, as if it had been in her plans all along. 

The cookies come out of the oven thirty minutes later. Seungwan has the perfect cooling time down to the second, and when the time is exactly right, she picks what she’d already deemed the best-looking one to hold up to Joohyun’s mouth.

“Well?” Seungwan watches as Joohyun takes a bite. “How is it?”

Joohyun chews slowly. “It’s good,” she says. But what she means to describe is much more than the soft, crumbly heat of the cookie, melting in her mouth and erasing any memory of what bitterness can taste like.

Most of the batch ends up being their dinner, and Joohyun brings the rest with her in a plastic container when she meets Sooyoung at the campus cafe the next morning. Although the cookies are no longer fresh out of the oven, Joohyun savors the softness that remains as she watches Sooyoung sit down across from her and promptly devour three before she’s finished her first.

Sooyoung sighs happily as she chews, and thankfully swallows before she says, “Living with Seungwan-unnie must be heaven.”

Joohyun smiles slightly. “I can’t say that I have any complaints.”

“Right, about that.” Sooyoung wipes her fingers on a napkin and then sets the cookie container aside. “When are you going to ask her out?”

Joohyun sits back. “Excuse me?”

Sooyoung rolls her eyes. “You’ve been making heart eyes at her since day one, and you’ve already started living together for another year. You’re practically married at this point.”

“That’s really not how it works,” Joohyun scoffs. “Are you saying you’d get married to Yerim?”

“Don’t be gross,” Sooyoung says. She raises her eyebrows at Joohyun’s affronted look. “Unnie, I’ve known you for what, fifteen years now? You can’t hide these kinds of things from me.”

“It’s not like I haven’t thought about asking her,” Joohyun says without thinking. But as soon as the words leave her lips, the weight of her affection for Seungwan has little left to prevent it from bursting out of where it had been buried in the very depths of her chest. She lets the feeling settle for a moment or two, savoring how it spreads to the very edges of her consciousness, and greets it like the old friend she hadn’t realized she has.

“Oh,” says Sooyoung, and Joohyun allows herself a flash of smugness for having caught the other off-guard. “Well, it’s easy then, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Joohyun agrees, resting her chin on her palm as she turns to stare out the cafe window. 

Sooyoung reaches for the cookie container again. “You won’t know until you try.”

Joohyun spares her a withering glance. “This isn’t like your soccer tryouts, Park Sooyoung.”

“Why not?” Sooyoung covers her mouth as she speaks around a mouthful of cookie. “If I could get onto the university team as a high school student, why can’t you ask your roommate out on a date?”

Joohyun huffs, holding out a napkin even though Sooyoung has miraculously avoided getting crumbs anywhere on her face. “You were a lot less annoying when you were five and only wanted me to be the one to tie your shoelaces.”

“You’re the only one that did it right,” says Sooyoung, placing the lid back on the now empty container. “And you can do it right for Seungwan-unnie, too.” She presses down, and the lid seals with a decisive snap.

-

“Sorry I’m late,” Seulgi puffs as she slides into the seat across the table from Seungwan. “Sooyoung wanted to get some extra drills in after practice.”

Seungwan covers her mouth as she chuckles, hoping the sound won’t attract the attention of the librarian sitting at the front desk. “It’s fine. Joohyun-unnie told me that Sooyoung ended up eating a lot of cookies this morning, so she probably had to run off all of the sugar.”

Seulgi sets down her notes and textbook before looking up to pout at Seungwan. “You made cookies yesterday and didn’t leave me any?”

Seungwan is already reaching into her bag. “Of course I saved you some.” She laughs again as Seulgi’s eyes light up. “You can’t eat them in the library.”

“I know, I know.” Seulgi sets the container aside. “What was the special occasion? You usually only bake on the weekends.”

Seungwan shrugs. “Joohyun-unnie just looked a little down, so I thought this would be a good way to cheer her up.”

“Yeah?” Seulgi is so pure that she probably doesn’t possess a single teasing bone in her body, but the curve in her smile is a little too knowing for Seungwan’s liking. “That’s nice of you to do.”

“It was nothing,” Seungwan mumbles as she ducks into her notes. “Did you read chapter six yet?”

“What do you think of Joohyun-unnie?” Seulgi asks instead.

“She’s great,” Seungwan says, glancing up to glare across the table. “Can we study now?”

“Not when your face is that red,” Seulgi snickers, and Seungwan immediately feels the heat in her cheeks deepen. She shifts, and Seulgi quickly relents, eyes softening for a reason Seungwan doesn’t want to be sure of. “Sorry, I was just curious. You talk a lot about her, that’s all.”

Seungwan frowns. “What do you mean?”

Seulgi hums. “You’re always mentioning things she’s texted you, or shows you’ve watched together when you both have the time, or stuff you’ve done because you know it would make her happy.”

“Okay,” says Seungwan, looking away because Seulgi’s stare has become too understanding. “So what? I live with her and she’s my friend, so of course we’re going to hang out a lot and I want what’s best for her.”

“Of course,” Seulgi agrees. “But I guess you should know that Joohyun-unnie would also say all those things about you, too.”

Seulgi usually isn’t one to speak so cryptically. But to Seungwan’s frustration, she refuses to elaborate any further, only admitting to having discussed _something_ with Sooyoung at length after practice. Seungwan barely makes it through the rest of chapter six before eventually succumbing to the inevitable, and bids Seulgi a hasty goodbye before gathering her things and exiting the library.

Seungwan has already baked and decorated two batches of cookies by the time Joohyun returns to the apartment. She’s opened the kitchen window, but the incoming night air isn’t enough to cool the sweat from Seungwan’s forehead.

“It’s warm in here,” Joohyun says as she steps in. 

Seungwan almost flings a frosting tip across the room at her sudden appearance. Joohyun raises her eyebrows, and Seungwan manages a sheepish grin as she gestures at the trays of finished cookies. “Do you want to try one?”

“It’s good,” says Joohyun before she even takes a bite, but Seungwan pretends that she doesn’t notice this. “I thought we’d used up all the ingredients yesterday.”

“I bought more.” Seungwan sifts flour into her mixing bowl, and then yelps when the measuring cup shakes a little too much and flour gets all over the counter. “I’ll clean that up.”

“I can do it.” Somehow, Joohyun already has a damp towel in hand. She steps forward and begins wiping up the spill, her free hand brushing against Seungwan’s back as she leans close to get the far corner.

Seungwan skitters away. Joohyun pauses, and then turns to look at her. Seungwan laughs nervously. “Thanks, unnie.”

Joohyun frowns. She leaves the cloth on the counter and steps closer, slowly but steadily backing Seungwan into the same corner where they’d ended their flour fight the day before. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah,” Seungwan squeaks. “I’m just a little stressed, that’s all.”

“Oh.” Joohyun thankfully stops advancing. “Do you want to talk about it?” She turns to give the kitchen another look, and then faces Seungwan again. “Or do you want me to help you with your stress baking?”

And it’s really not fair, Seungwan laments, how the smallest, softest smile Joohyun has is also her most genuine one -- the one that erases every doubt Seungwan could have that in this moment, she is the only one Joohyun is looking at. It’s this smile that pushes her to say, “I do know what I want,” before she’s finished thinking it.

But Seungwan has seen Joohyun look at Sooyoung and Seulgi just like that, too, and watched as she quickly developed the same affection even for the first-year who is now Sooyoung’s roommate. So hesitation continues to constrict Seungwan’s chest, her heart ramming against its bony cage and her lungs quivering with the effort to take her next breath. 

“But I never know what to do when it’s you.”

Joohyun stills. 

Seungwan knows immediately that she’s said too much. Her fingers curl into fists, digging sharply into her palms as she quickly shoves her hands into the pocket of her apron. The kitchen is at once too hot and also too cold, and she wishes that the burning chill of imminent rejection would drive her so deeply underground that she’d never have to consider coming back up.

“Seungwan,” Joohyun finally says, and Seungwan is too terrified to look. But then Joohyun’s feet step back into her pointedly downward gaze, and Joohyun says, “I used to not know, either. But now I do.”

Seungwan can’t help but lift her head at that. Joohyun is still smiling at her, and it’s the same small softness Seungwan is already familiar with. But this close, and spurred on by the reckless bravery that her spiraling mortification from moments before has left behind, Seungwan is finally able to see in Joohyun’s eyes what she hopes no one else will ever be able to: something that is bright and burning, brimming with the hope to someday beat for Seungwan, and Seungwan only.

“You’ve got some flour on your face,” Joohyun starts, lifting a perfectly clean hand to rest against Seungwan’s cheek. But her smile remains and her stare stays fixed, watching Seungwan intently as she ever so slowly begins to lean in.

Seungwan is maybe a little too eager to meet her halfway. Their first kiss is brief, but their second lasts for longer. And by the third they’ve already found the best way to fit around each other -- perhaps because it is something that comes as naturally as the rest of what they’ve always been.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always somewhere @moonrise31 so come say hi!!


End file.
